after selling many of these amps in the vintage market, I would like to try
to build one for my own use.

I have all kinds of wonderful vintage tubes and resistors, capacitors etc of
the correct types, available in my warehouse. - so those items are no
problem

what I need advice on, is what commercially available new tranny would get
me the closest to the originals in specs & sound

or, if there is some other vintage amp I could harvest that is plentiful,
whose trannies happen to be a match electrically, and would not break the
bank, such as Dynaco ST-70, Eico, Heathkit, etc.

any advice is appreciated

cowboy

thanks for all the help

.................NOT!



"cowboy" cacheoverflow@yahooDOTcom wrote in message
...
after selling many of these amps in the vintage market, I would like to
try to build one for my own use.

I have all kinds of wonderful vintage tubes and resistors, capacitors etc
of the correct types, available in my warehouse. - so those items are no
problem

what I need advice on, is what commercially available new tranny would
get me the closest to the originals in specs & sound

or, if there is some other vintage amp I could harvest that is plentiful,
whose trannies happen to be a match electrically, and would not break the
bank, such as Dynaco ST-70, Eico, Heathkit, etc.

any advice is appreciated

cowboy

For an OPT you might try Sowter in England, or if you want to deal
with the stuck up douchebag, there's a guy in Philadelphia that has a
LOT of old transformer blueprints, and will make the original Peerless
he says Sid Smith tore down and copied (which, he probably did...) but
it's going to be high, high dollar. The other guy in Wauwatosa, WI-I
can't remember his name-has rewound at least one and will do a clone
too but be prepared for a really big bill as well.

There is no Dyna product that comes close. Acrosound, UTC, and Triad
might have had a catalog part and if you really want one you might find
it if you knew the part number. Another long shot would be VTL/Manley
who built a virtual clone supposedly.

However, before going to the trouble, you might consider the words of
actor/writer/homebrewer Vincent Gallo: "Model Nines stink, period." I
don't know if he ment that Marantz Nines 'just' stank or if they
produced a smell that was menstrual in aromatic quality... be advised,
there may be good reason 5s and 8B's are far more commonly cloned.

like actors actually know anything about tube amps or sound quality

I am surprised they even own a tube amp.

his amp probably needs new caps and probably has some crappy chinese tubes
that have never been biased



wrote in message
oups.com...
For an OPT you might try Sowter in England, or if you want to deal
with the stuck up douchebag, there's a guy in Philadelphia that has a
LOT of old transformer blueprints, and will make the original Peerless
he says Sid Smith tore down and copied (which, he probably did...) but
it's going to be high, high dollar. The other guy in Wauwatosa, WI-I
can't remember his name-has rewound at least one and will do a clone
too but be prepared for a really big bill as well.

There is no Dyna product that comes close. Acrosound, UTC, and Triad
might have had a catalog part and if you really want one you might find
it if you knew the part number. Another long shot would be VTL/Manley
who built a virtual clone supposedly.

However, before going to the trouble, you might consider the words of
actor/writer/homebrewer Vincent Gallo: "Model Nines stink, period." I
don't know if he ment that Marantz Nines 'just' stank or if they
produced a smell that was menstrual in aromatic quality... be advised,
there may be good reason 5s and 8B's are far more commonly cloned.

Well, you're making an assumption. It's my better-than-guess it's a
wrong one in this case. He wrote extensively for the now-defunct "Sound
Practices" and seemed very knowledgeable. If you're running a Variac in
continuous duty service for a 10% voltage stepdown, it's far better
than even odds he knows more than you do.

actually no,

there is no chance that any actor knows more about tube amps and tube
testers than I do

there are not 5 people on the earth who have had their hands on more TV-7
tube testers or Marantz model 9's than I have

now, if we were discussing Ned Carlson, he DOES know more than I do

I was reading Sound Practices back before Vincent Gallo even knew what a
tube was.


wrote in message
oups.com...
Well, you're making an assumption. It's my better-than-guess it's a
wrong one in this case. He wrote extensively for the now-defunct "Sound
Practices" and seemed very knowledgeable. If you're running a Variac in
continuous duty service for a 10% voltage stepdown, it's far better
than even odds he knows more than you do.

PS - I went back and pulled out my old issues of Sound Practices, his
articles were HUMOR articles, not technical, that is why I did not remember
them

he likes solid state amps (i.e. Krell, Levinson, etc.) better than tube amps

therefore, he is obviously an idiot with bad hearing

and I also went to www.imdb.com and checked on Mr. Gallo's acting career, he
is a bit player primarily

so you might want to take the opinions of a 2-bit actor/humorist, for what
they are worth -- HUMOR

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 20:24:58 -0500, "cowboy"
cacheoverflow@yahooDOTcom wrote:

I was reading Sound Practices back before Vincent Gallo even knew what a
tube was.

FWIW, Gallo appears in issue #1.

But anyway, his movie _Buffalo 66_ with Christina Ricci is not to
be missed. In my top five yadayada.

Chris Hornbeck
"Don't be foolish, like the others." _Lola Montes_, 1955

interesting flick, be he is apparently a one-hit wonder when it comes to
films

anyone who thinks a Marantz Model 9 "sounds like ****" needs to stick with
acting or humor or playing in small garage bands


"Chris Hornbeck" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 20:24:58 -0500, "cowboy"
cacheoverflow@yahooDOTcom wrote:

I was reading Sound Practices back before Vincent Gallo even knew what a
tube was.

FWIW, Gallo appears in issue #1.

But anyway, his movie _Buffalo 66_ with Christina Ricci is not to
be missed. In my top five yadayada.

Chris Hornbeck
"Don't be foolish, like the others." _Lola Montes_, 1955

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 21:12:00 -0500, "cowboy"
cacheoverflow@yahooDOTcom wrote:

interesting flick, be he is apparently a one-hit wonder when it comes to
films

anyone who thinks a Marantz Model 9 "sounds like ****" needs to stick with
acting or humor or playing in small garage bands

Gotta agree with you there. For a really strange Gallo movie,
try _Freeway 2_, but only if you're not easily offended. Or even
not easily disgusted. Very disturbing in a variety of ways.
But fun.... -ish.

Chris Hornbeck
"Don't be foolish, like the others." _Lola Montes_, 1955

Natasha Lyonne is pretty hot, but she is no Reese Witherspoon, and this
stupid movie is no Freeway

I thought Buffalo 66 was pretty cool, but this movie was a bad joke

(though not as bad as Tom Cruise massacring "The Hustler" and Mission
Impossible TV series)


"Chris Hornbeck" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 21:12:00 -0500, "cowboy"
cacheoverflow@yahooDOTcom wrote:

interesting flick, be he is apparently a one-hit wonder when it comes to
films

anyone who thinks a Marantz Model 9 "sounds like ****" needs to stick with
acting or humor or playing in small garage bands

Gotta agree with you there. For a really strange Gallo movie,
try _Freeway 2_, but only if you're not easily offended. Or even
not easily disgusted. Very disturbing in a variety of ways.
But fun.... -ish.

Chris Hornbeck
"Don't be foolish, like the others." _Lola Montes_, 1955

I can't comment on the Marantz 9 specifically but many old tube amps
in general do not "sound as good" as some modern solid state amps. I
can tell you the McIntosh MC3500 is no major sonic prize.

It's beyond question that although in general Marantz tube equipment
was some of the best of its day, modern developments have eclipsed them
and that while bringing the old Marantz equipment more in line with
modern sonics is possible-see Jung and Childress, "St. POOGE and the
DRIAAgon", regarding the Marantz 7 preamp-to do so would kill their
collector value.

Be very skeptical of the value of tube testers in general. I believe
they do more to promote tube rolling and other inept activities than
facilitate good technicianship. In a better world their sale and
posession would be restricted to people who have proven technical
abilities, besides a solid basic DC and AC electrical theory the
ability to troubleshoot logically, follow a circuit and use really
useful test equipment such as a signal generator and oscilloscope. If
one is mostly interested in testing the limited number of tubes with
common pinouts found in hobby hi-fi and guitar amps today one should
build a simple transconductance fixture. Most of the complexity of a
tube tester is the need to test a great number of types of tube with a
lot of different heater/filament voltages and pinouts. If you already
have a low voltage DC bench supply and a HV bench supply (and if you
don't you have NO BUSINESS owning a tube tester) you are good to go.

As far as Mr. Gallo, after "The Brown Bunny" no one is going to argue
that he's a cinematic genius....Nonetheless I bet he's more
knowledgeable, more discerning, and less obtuse than you are.

There are no current production model 9 transformers out there that I
have seen. Marantz did reissue the model 7 and 9 a few years back, but
they no longer show up in current catalogs. I'd bet someone out there
has some transformers since someone built the ones for the reissue amps.
But I'd bet you will pay a pretty penny for each transformer if you can
find left over stock.
Chances are you will need to get the exact specs and have them custom
wound.
The problem is not the primary, which is a traditional ultralinear
configuration, but the extra windings on the secondary for the current
and voltage negative feedback. Without these, you can not get the proper
feedback and consequently the same damping factor and effect relative to
speaker load. One of the reasons the model 9 sounds so good is that
Marantz not only designed the amp to perform flawlessly under tests with
a dummy resistor load, but they also incorporated design features to
allow the amps to perform well by compensating for the effects of the
dynamic load presented by a real speaker. Something many amp
manufacturers do not take into consideration when publishing their
bloated specs. As for the voltage amp, phase inverter and driver
circuits, you can duplicate them easily enough. The model 9 is a really
tight, fine sounding amplifier. A pair for stereo not only sound good
but have the added bonus of being a formidable space heater in the
colder climates. I feel model 9's are very VERY over priced, but one can
not argue that these mono power amps are very high quality.
Although you will not be able to exactly duplicate the model 9
without that output transformer, you can use a current production
transformer in the 120 watt class with a primary of 2000 ohms
and just redesign the inverse feedback circuit to something similar to
what Grommes used in their power amps. The thing with these power amps
is that they were built like tanks. You could blast the crap out of them
all day long and they would never give you any grief. As you can
probably tell, I really like Marantz and am always impressed with their
amps every time I have one in my shop for restoration. It is rare to
ever see one, even a real junker, that does not at least work, even if
it does need a bit of help. Ditto for the many fine McIntosh products.
As the man said, you get what you pay for!
Bill B.
hifi and guitar tube amp tech and designer at:
http://home.alltel.net/wbittle1

cowboy wrote:

after selling many of these amps in the vintage market, I would like to try
to build one for my own use.

I have all kinds of wonderful vintage tubes and resistors, capacitors etc of
the correct types, available in my warehouse. - so those items are no
problem

what I need advice on, is what commercially available new tranny would get
me the closest to the originals in specs & sound

or, if there is some other vintage amp I could harvest that is plentiful,
whose trannies happen to be a match electrically, and would not break the
bank, such as Dynaco ST-70, Eico, Heathkit, etc.

any advice is appreciated

cowboy

The reissue Marantzes were built by VAC and they got the transformers
wound somewhere, muy guess is if you figure out where, and draw one up
without caling it a marantz 9, that house will wind them for you as " a
design we just happen to have...". Figure on a 10 to 25 piece run.
Sowters in England would be my first choice to have one or two done. If
you could swinging buying a 9 and loaning it-or just the OPT-to them
for awhile it might go smoother.

Nevertheless there is probably good reason why Marantz 9 clones are
unheard of whereas 5 and 8B are not particularly rare.

On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:52:48 -0500, Wbittle
wrote:

There are no current production model 9 transformers out there that I
have seen. Marantz did reissue the model 7 and 9 a few years back, but
they no longer show up in current catalogs. I'd bet someone out there
has some transformers since someone built the ones for the reissue amps.

The reissues were built by Valve Amplification Company in Durham, NC.
The head guys there, Kevin Hayes and Kevin Carter, are pretty cool,
but VAC is unlikely to be geared up for working with hobbyists.

Good fortune with your project,

Chris Hornbeck